Original Link:
http://tominpaine.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-obama-new-nixon-and-same-old-new.html
On July 4th the New York Times wrote an editorial criticizing Senator Obama and expressing what might be called dismay over the fact that he's reneged on every promise he's ever made and changed or reversed his position on every issue of importance to the people who supported him during the primary. The most recent betrayal was his vote on the FISA legislation which at one time he promised to filibuster, giving the telecoms immunity for breaking the law on behalf of the Bush Administration and violating their customers 4th amendment rights. And it's easy to know why. Having opted out of public campaign financing, (another broken pledge,) it was for campaign contributions from the telecoms. And he was more than willing to sell out the 4th Amendment to get it.
All this seems to have taken the New York Times completely by surprise. Which doesn't say much for the New York Times and their powers of journalistic observation given the fact that these things have been obvious to at least 18 million people for anywhere from 7 months to 5 years including the people who know him from Chicago, And it doesn't say much for the judgement of Gail Collins, the editorial page editor of the New York Times who either wrote or approved the editorial.
But what was most startling about this editorial was it's referral to Obama's lies, deceptions,pandering, and reneging on pledges as "The New Obama".
To Collins this "New Obama" was confounding. She found Obama's dishonesty and the fact that he was talking out of both sides of his mouth and reversing himself on every position he took during the primary "perplexing". And she is "distressed" to learn that Obama does not keep his word and panders to whomever he happens to be talking to at the moment to try and get what he wants.
Calling him "The New Obama" , the Times never makes the obvious connection to what 40 years ago was called "The New Nixon". This was the term Nixon used to forge his political comeback. Everyone saw through it and it was a joke because everyone knew it was the same old Nixon trying to repackage himself just as it is the same old Obama, who conned the people he needed to gain his primary advantage and is now trying to sell his snake oil to evangelicals and conservatives but telling them it contains a completely different set of ingredients than the snake oil he sold to Keith Olbermann, Arianna Huffington, Bill Richardson, Newsweek, and everyone else who bought it and drank it. And that's the difference.
While the old media never bought "the New Nixon" and saw through it, obviously this collection of journalists who seem to have the powers of observation of a drunken sailor on a Saturday night on Bali, led by Collins and the New York Times, has never been able to see through Obama. They think that what they're seeing now is something "new", instead of the same Obama so many millions saw through right from the beginning, though Bob Herbert a Times columnist and Obama supporter seems to be the first at the newspaper to actually start saying "wait a minute..".
The analogy of Obama to Nixon is valid from many different points of view since a case can be made that Obama is the most underhanded and dishonest politician since Nixon. Excerpted From:
http://senatorobamaisanopportunist.blogspot.com/2008/07/barack-obama-new-nixon.html